Home and Dry

Last week was extremely busy and intense with work, but things ended on a positive note in my corner despite difficult news on the larger horizon But...better days are potentially on the horizon.

It was 67 degrees cloudy as I left and I tried to ignore the too familiar Denver-United announcement of "flight attendants will remain seated due to turbulence but will begin service as soon as it's safe". If it's not safe, then why do we have this plane in the to begin with?

It was good to be home and see Bow so excited and gorgeous local weather as Denver get pulmeted with the above storm that is just beginning. Now it will be exciting to see United deliver my bag sometime between 6 and 10 p.m. tonight.

What the Hail?

It lasted for a matter of seconds and produced only a few pea sized nuggets, but we had a hail storm in the back garden this afternoon. The sound definitely grabbed Bow's attention. Perhaps she feared the chilly blasts of Chicago had followed her to the West.

Interactive Thursday: How's Your Weather/Cold?

Many of my frequent readers (all three of you, as so many like-minded bloggers often say) know that I also have a Facebook presence which I refuse to completely upstage this little showcase. The challenge with Facebook is how much you want to mix the personal/professional. Everything I post there is G-rated (compared to the -- at worst -- PG rated stuff here), but now and again some of my randier friends will put something in their Facebook status that would be best shared over drinks not where anyone in my family, professional, social network can see. So I get very cautious about commenting on some of their status updates.

Perhaps the most common status updates over on Facebook this and last week have referenced either the weather (and varying comments on parts of their anatomy that are either about to fall off or have frozen solid) or dripping sinuses and more graphic descriptions of physical run 0ff.

Like clock work, I managed to get my early December cold the first week of the month, and I've been over it for about a week. This evening I was looking forward to a meet up with three of my favorite local bloggers, but it seems the pre-holiday crud has forced us to delay that.

Above is my night table with its usual winter accouterments and the lingering drip is the one thing I really hate about San Francisco "winter". The temperature doesn't really but me that much, but the dripping sinuses that seem to keep at it until June or so are no pleasure. Luckily I have Bow around this winter to take the place of a hot water bottle, and tomorrow her new raincoat is supposed to arrive. So we hope to have our winter fashion show just in time to welcome our next monsoon to greet with Winter Solstice.

Just keep remembering, come Monday there will be a little more light each day.

Miss Bow Says:

Nothing is more heavenly on a December afternoon than getting a little sun on top of the heat vent. Ah!

Today...and Most of This Week

Don't Hate Us If You're in the East

This proved to be a perfect, long holiday weekend. I had to laugh when I heard some of my wimpy friends whine about how some of the weather here was "cold and miserable". That translates to being foggy and in the 60s. Personally, I thought it was perfect weather to sleep in late (i.e. 6:45 a.m.), snuggle with my basenji, go for a walk with her in her fleece coat and then come back to snuggle with her over coffee and the Sunday Times.

Thanks for all the comments of support for her great guest blogging. She may do another stint soon. She really is proving to be the dream pooch. She is adjusting quickly to going from being a suburban Chicago girl to a sophisticated Basenji Bay Girl. She's getting more comfortable with the noises and smells of the Mission. Even roaring motorcycles, fire trucks and growling pit bulls. We go one more block on each walk, and she is responding quickly to my leash commands. I don't want to speak too soon, but she is definitely feeling like a keeper.

While I am watching the news about delays to fog at SFO, O'Hare facing many delays and cancellation due to weather and 22 degrees back in Michigan where she was last week, I am so glad she didn't make her long trip last week. Here are just a few shots of our afternoon in the garden where it was nearly 70 degrees and then lounging in the sunny living room as she enjoyed a favorite chew treat. Now it's time to get back to work, but I am pinching myself that I am lucky enough to work from home and with such a sweet, gorgeous companion by my side.

And, of course, we won't be so smug when the rains hit and she has to be coaxed to go out in the three months of drizzle.

Fan the Cool, But Don't Fan the Flames

We're not quite sure why, but Lauren of Mindful Things has added Junk Thief to her Facebook group Fan of Fans. Considering that her first feature is a Hello Kitty fan (with blades and a motor, not just an enthusiast), it seems like a dandy little group to have joined.

Junk Thief actually likes fans and once had a collection of some really nice pre-Mid-Century fans. Fans should be black and chrome not colorful and plastic. They should be so noisy that you can't hear anything but their roar and should have at least a couple of spots mended with black electrician's tape. There is something very hypnotic and all consuming about a nice noisy fan on a balmy summer afternoon.

Fans scream out old money Boston Brahman shabby chic. One thing that bonds New Englanders, Europeans and San Franciscans is a disdain for ice cubes and air conditioning. Junk Thief isn't very fond of air conditioning, but he prefers it to heat. Ice cubes, of course, remind him of his twin nemesises -- colas and sweet iced tea.

Worse than air conditioning are those damned heaters for eating al fresco in California. If you can't stand the chill, stay out of the outdoor dining room, Junk Thief always says. Maybe he's a northern European, where people have elegant (low heat index) candle-lit suppers in chilly dining rooms in heavy evening finery. Or maybe he's just peeved that San Francisco is having unseasonably hot weather in November. Fortunately it's supposed to start cooling off and should be nice by Wednesday. Bring out the top hats and silk scarves!

Glisten

For those who have not spent extended time in California, it is hard for them to wrap their minds around our two seasons -- dry and wet -- and even harder for them to believe we go with less than an inch of rain for up to nine months. So when the wet season first begins, I am excited to see it and retire the watering in the back garden for a while. Barely a week into it, though, I am usually anxious for it to end. However, since it only started Thursday, I am still in the enjoyment phase. It's also helpful as I deal with this weird mourning phase of not having Guru in the house. We only had two months together, but the bond was deep.

In the meantime, discussion is in the works about this little boy being sprung from a shelter in Mesquite, Texas, and coming out West provided he's not placed with a foster in Dallas. I'm next in line provided his psychological profile proves to be suitable.

Cool Autumn Mornings...

...make those with ancient African blood lines prefer to stay in this position

Pefection

The weather this weekend in San Francisco has been about as close to perfection as it gets for me. It never topped 60 degrees, it was mildly overcast but not gloomy and a slight mist was in the air. This is perfect weather for walking, long stops for having coffee outside, reading or chatting with friends. And to think it's late July! I've suffered through enough hot summers (including the week before last and May here) in other places to appreciate such a day. Though I am not that fond of extended overcast skies or ran, I definitely consider extended days of sun extremely depressing and Key West, Hawaii and Bali are my definition of hell.

There are the usual annoying SF whiners who define days like this as "cold", and I only want to send them to Alabama. Though I am not totally opposed to sun, I prefer to look at it from inside and almost always hate being in it. It's another reminder of why I need to start my plans years in advance of retiring to a more northern climate.

A Light Most Odd

I wake with spooky gunk in my nose each morning as we continue to have lousy air quality, and I can only imagine what it's like further inland. My question, however, is why weather reports list the conditions as being "unhealthful" instead of "unhealthy"?

Too

Cities cooler than it is in the Mission today: New Orleans, Miami, San Diego, Honolulu, Nashville. This is wrong and miserable. I want my money back. Tomorrow is supposed to be a tad more civilized.

Flip Flopping Issue

Perhaps the biggest issue of the season is yes or no to flip flops. I get pissed at people complaining about men in flip flops which is such a gross generalization -- poorly groomed feet in general; urgh/men with nicely groomed feet/yum. However, as this ridiculously trivial yet engrossing debate at Slog proves, this divides people more than that decision on which way to install a roll of toilet paper or put a phone back on the hook -- back in the day of phones with cords.

I, however, just find the sound of flip flops annoying, as evidenced in this piece two years ago Crocs, however, are a crime against humanity.

Kangerlussuaq Dreamin' on a Hot, Nasty Day

MANTRA FOR
A SUNDAY:

You can
never be --

Too thin


Too rich


or

Too cold

Cracker attack!

Gay marriage? Whatever. Is everyone so blind that they did not notice that the court's announcement came just as temperatures hit 101 in San Francisco? I'm no fan of televangelicals, but clearly this is the work of that evil weather juju man of San Antonio, John Hagee. Think Jeremiah Wright is nutty and dangerous? Hagee is clearly not only insane but also possesses some evil powers that brought suffering to New Orleans via Katrina, Indonesia and Myanmar (primarily non-Christian nations) via the tsunami and cyclone respectively, and now the boiling of San Francisco. This is one fat cracker that spells serious trouble. It's barely 11 a.m. and it's already hotter than hell. Oops, I said hell!

I'll gladly join Jews for Jesus, participate the Exodus ex-gay boot camp and eat a platter of fried slop at the Cracker Barrel if it will bring back civilized weather to San Francisco. Mr. Hagee, I appeal to you on my knees. And, yes, I agree with you that the Pope is a big whore.

Hell Is Creeping Out of Town

I survived! The past two days have been living hell in San Francisco. The dreadful, skanky, killer weather I moved here to flee is beginning to leave. For 48 hours everything and everyone stank, and it was impossible to be outside which really sucks. I even spent Friday in Santa Rosa where there was a round of cheers as, over the course of just an hour, the temperature went from 102 to 95. Imagine being thrilled that it was only 95. Friday night in SF was still too hot, and there was a cracked-wacked out kid in front of the St. Francis Fountain who kept coming in and disturbing everyone. After multiple attempts to kick him out, the lanky staff finally called the cops. In the meantime, an hombre in a 49ers jersey from Pop's bar across the street got a bucket of ice water that he threw on the kid twice. I was sure that our little corner would explode into a re-enactment of Do the Right Thing until the cops arrived.

This afternoon, I met up with a group for lunch at Skates on the Berkeley Marina, easily distracted by a lanky Cal grad out for commencement lunch with the family, ignoring them as he read Proust in his rumbled blue seersucker jacket and crisp pink oxford shirt. Was I ever that adorable? He was much tastier than the chorizo in my Spanish omelet.

Though the weather was nastily balmy when we entered, by the time we left, the fog had swallowed the Golden Gate and was off to Richmond to hide its refineries. As we walked along the marina in the park that was once a garbage dump, walking briskly, no one had the audacity to say "It's freezing!" (Uh, that would be 32 degrees less than what we're experiencing.)

I'm just glad it's almost reasonable enough again to return outside, do gardening, take long walks and look at the sky again. For two days the sky was an angry yellow fire breathing ball, and now I feel far more appreciative of where I live. I may not have to put in for my transfer to Greenland after all.

How many times did I use fog and lanky in this post?

It's Here...

After a very pleasantly cool night last night and a morning where I kept telling myself that the heat was not that bad...hell has descended on San Francisco. The only reason to go outside is to douse the plants lest they not survive. The above is my recommendation for the next asshole I hear whine about how "It's always so cold in San Francisco."

Hell Week

Is it too late to send a message of apology to John Hagee? Apparently not, since just as he maneuvered Katrina as punishment to cancel a sinful event in New Orleans, he has arranged for a heat wave coming to San Francisco. One of the few reasons I stay in San Francisco is the weather. It never gets cold here, and the hot days are mercifully few.

For those who don't know the Junk Thief temperature definitions, here they are:
Cold - 12 Fahrenheit and below
Cool - 13 - 28 Fahrenheit
Pleasant - 29 - 42 Fahrenheit
Perfect - 43 - 58 Fahrenheit
Warm - 59 - 61 Fahrenheit
Hot - 62 - 72 Fahrenheit
Hell on earth - 73 - 81 Fahrenheit
Death - 82 Fahrenheit and above

I thought I'd post this early, because I know that in 48 hours, I will not be able to touch the keyboard. You can see the horrible news here.

Please Don't Hate Me

Just because it's like a perfect spring day in early February in the Mission.
Talking to people in Cleveland, New York and Kansas City today, they were all furious that I have been seeing views like this out my front window.
And my much ballyhooed greenhouse keeps evolving. I already have my eyes on two more new ones.

Californian and Glad Again

After a week of very pleasant, clear weather, today is one of those days that I am reminded of why I am happy o live in California and that it is the norm not exception.

It's amazing just to see how different things look and feel in this light, when the sun is coaxing plants to bloom, a reason to feel all swoony about Valentine's Day even though it will be spent alone. I find myself intrigued by that Junk Symphony and very distraught about poor 21-year-old Felix being lost. I certainly hope he turns up, and if I find him I certain won't expect a reward in return.